There are different points of view on what kind of productivity a CC manager should expect from his operators, i.e. how many outbound calls they can actually make. Experience says that there seems to be a general rule that works for outgoing calls. It looks like this: on average, an agent can communicate with customers anywhere from 33 to 40 minutes of every productive hour, in other words, the percentage of time that an agent spends talking to a customer is from 55% to 66%. This means that the remaining time will be spent either waiting for the next call that the dialer will distribute (the better the dialer is optimized, the faster the call will arrive), or working with data, or the operator will simply be unavailable. In the simplest case, you can divide the duration of agent calls by the average duration of each call. This calculates the number of calls an agent can make in a day. But there are a number of factors that additionally affect this number, and you should not forget that the number of calls cannot replace the quality of service.
Important factors to evaluate
The following parameters must be taken into account:
1. Quality and quantity of subscribers in the loaded database
If the quality of your number base is not high enough, then operators will have to make a large number of calls, but they will be short. This is because there are no contacts of decision makers in the system, which in fact means that these calls are simply a mistake.
2. Average talk time
The optimal talk time should be calculated and monitored. You also need to take into account that the time of a conversation with employees who do not make decisions, and with persons who have such authority, will be different. This will allow you to work out a ratio such as 5 short calls to 1 conversation with the decision maker. You should use working hours in this ratio, and not try to work with averages. You also need to calculate the call time according to the type of calls you make – service, survey, or communication with the contact person responsible for sales or purchases.
3. Dialer speed
Diler settings also affect the time during which the operator is available and waiting for his next call – the number of lines per operator, the percentage of dropped calls, call duration – all these parameters affect the result.
4. Working environment in the call center
As in the case of a call center handling incoming calls, agents are influenced by the work environment. Noise in the room may increase the duration of a call, as operators have to speak more slowly and louder. Difficult conditions associated with stressful situations can lead to employees having longer conversations and pauses between calls before returning to the Available status.
Create the right KPIs
All this is very important for setting benchmarks and key performance indicators (KPIs) for working with outgoing calls. Once identified, a fairly long (e.g. two-week) test period will be needed to identify trends in:
- data quality and use,
- average talk time,
- behavior of operators regarding their return to ready status.
These results will allow you to create the right KPIs together with operators or a management team, and if you are an outsourcer, you can coordinate them with clients. Source: callcentre helper , translation: Oki-Toki
